Retrograde
by polski-doodle
Summary: Ludwig stared at the face, hoping there would be a click in his mind, a name coming out of the dark. The man's smile fell. "You don't remember me?" He spoke as if Ludwig had ripped his heart into a thousand pieces. "I'm sorry," Ludwig said, and he meant it. "What's your name?" "Gilbert?" Ludwig waited for the rush of recognition. It didn't come. [Rewrite of Numbers from Poland]


_**one: happy birthday, ludwig.**_

It is dead silent.

Ludwig looks up at the window above him. He cannot look anywhere else. He hasn't tried yet; somehow, he knows. His mouth tastes of metal and his forehead is slick with sweat, yet he's rather comfortable. He could fall asleep here if his heart wasn't hammering against his ribcage.

The sky is grey, as most things are now. The war was not kind to the world's color palette. Occasional drops of rain strike the glass, leaving splatters that clump together into small puddles. A little bird lands on the window, twisting its head about and pecking at its reflection. Ludwig is fascinated by its bright blue underbelly and yellow throat. A warm, syrupy, long-suppressed memory blooms in his thoughts. He sees the bird his brother owned years and years ago, a rambunctious budgie narcissistically and lovingly named Gilbird. Ludwig used to spend hours in Gilbert's study watching Gilbird hop around the desk and chatter.

_Gilbert._

They'd spoken this morning, hadn't they?

Ludwig closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them he is standing in his apartment again, tangling his fingers in the phone cord as Gilbert rambles about how Ivan is making him clean every room in the house and it's not fair. Ludwig asks if Gilbert will meet him at the train station. There is a long pause before Gilbert tells him he can't meet him, that Tolys (that scheming rat of a man who slammed Gilbert's hand in a drawer yesterday and oh, _sure _it was an accident, Tolys 'I-hate-Gilbert-with-every-fiber-of-my-being' Laurinaitis) will be there to get him and maybe Raivis, if it's not past his self-mandated bedtime.

"Why?" Ludwig asks.

"It's complicated."

He stares at a spot on the wall and tells Gilbert he misses him.

"Don't sound so gloomy. We'll see each other in a few hours," Gilbert says with a gentle laugh. "Cheer up, birthday boy."

His ears ring. All Ludwig can hear is a grating, monotone drone and as he opens his eyes, he sees blood drip from his eyelashes. The room shifts in and out of focus and it reeks of burnt inorganic materials, plastics and rubbers choking the air with toxic fumes. Ludwig begins to realize something might be wrong.

"Hello?" he calls out, not sure if he even spoke. He can't hear himself over the ringing. His pulse pounds in his head and in his neck and in his left leg.

If there is a response, he can't hear it. Everything is loud (is the ringing even real? Or can his mind no longer understand silence and has made up a filler noise?). He can't figure out where he is or why there are seats bolted to the wall. His arm is propped up on his chest, and he sees that his watch face is shattered.

The odd scene before his eyes crumbles and now he's sitting at the Bonn station, watching the minutes tick by on his new watch, a birthday gift from Feliciano. Feliciano came over yesterday and made spaghetti alla carbonara, which if Ludwig could die properly, is to die for. They drank a lot of wine and laughed – Feliciano laughs at anything, while Ludwig reserves even a smile for a good moment. For a few hours, Ludwig allowed himself to think things are normal again. The illusion fell apart when he rushed out of his apartment this morning, too hurried to notice that Feliciano gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, too worried about missing his train to realize that he'd left his home in lovably incapable Italian hands.

Now he sits on a bench and waits. He taps his foot and counts people passing by and above all, clutches his ticket as though it could be torn away from him at any second. So much work goes into getting a ticket to Moscow that he can't risk letting it out of his sight. He has been through kilograms of paperwork, three meetings, two security clearances, and missed so many hours of sleep worrying. Losing the ticket is not an option. When his train arrives after a century of waiting, he is one of the first passengers to board. After working his way through security, he follows an attendant with a gun on his hip to his car. As the attendant pushes open the door, Ludwig's eyes cloud over and he feels the floor melt like chocolate.

When he returns to the strange room – now filled with smoke – the pieces click together.

It is Ludwig's birthday and he isn't turning anything. Birthdays are fickle events when you're semi-immortal and you change all the time, never having an identity that lasts as long as you do. Some nations choose to remember their ages. Most don't, because no matter how old they are, their appearance will never change. They are trapped in a physical age. Ludwig is incredibly grateful he stopped aging at twenty and not an awkward age like fourteen.

It is Ludwig's birthday and he is going to Moscow to see his brother. This is what he does on his birthday. He spends three days in Moscow with Gilbert, and they try to force a year into 72 hours. They sleep for only a handful of hours, and they almost never leave the other's sight. They speak so fast they can hardly understand the other. There are always tears when Ludwig leaves, though neither of them will admit it. They were raised better than to cry.

It is Ludwig's birthday and his neck and left leg are broken. He is bleeding from a deep gash on his forehead. The train car is smothered in black smoke. Everything is too quiet. His consciousness is hanging on by a fraying thread. Blood rolls into his right eye and he can't blink it away, no matter how much he scrunches his face up. It snakes down his neck. It drips from the tip of his nose. His mouth and throat are full of blood and he has a splitting headache, numbed a bit by shock. Ludwig, having lived a gentle, war-free life for the past seven years, forgot just how irritating it is to die a slow death. There is nothing he can do to pick up the pace.

"Of course," Ludwig says to no one in particular.

Of course this would happen today. Ludwig isn't quite sure what _this _is, but what he does know is that the train is on its side, there's a fire somewhere, and he'll be dead within a few minutes. It's just his luck that there would be a horrible accident today. Now he'll have to go through the whole trouble of dying, coming back to life, mending himself, filling out paperwork, and rearranging his trip to Moscow. There's a lot to be said when the easiest part of the list is dying.

It takes far too much energy for Ludwig to open his eyes again; death is coming faster than he thought, rushing toward him like a wave about to crash on the shore. He doesn't mind, as there's nothing to see and the faster he can get through with this, the better. Ludwig is well accustomed with death. He's died more times than he can remember, so death is no longer an ordeal. It's more of a bother than anything.

As he closes his eyes for the last time in this life, Ludwig wishes he would've taken the later train.

There is only an instant where Ludwig is dead. He feels the separation of soul from body and sees the endless void of death stretching out before him. This fraction of a second never ceases to scare him because someday he will be here for longer. Someday he will stand here with those who went before him and take a step into the unknown.

But not today.

Ludwig stands in the mountain field beneath a pink sunset. The hills in the distance sway with the wind, the shadows in the valleys churning as they crash against the ridges. The air smells of chamomile tea and the loamy scent left after a rainstorm. The tight knot of stress tied around his lungs loosens for a moment and he remembers what it's like to breathe.

The boy is stretched out on a rock, sunning himself. His clothes are strewn about around him – the only thing left on his body are his black pants with the immaculate gold embroidering. He tilts his head up toward Ludwig and squints into the sun. Ludwig does an ashamed half-wave. The boy groans.

"It's you again," he says as he pushes himself upright. The boy grabs his shirt and pulls it over his head. His honey-gold hair falls into his eyes and sticks up at odd angles. "Didn't I just see you?"

"Not since 1945."

"What happened this time?"

"A train wreck, I think."

The boy smirks as he stands up and stretches, unfolding himself like a cat waking up from a nap. "And it killed you? Christ, you new nations will die from anything. My father survived the plague and you get a little scrape on your head and you're done." He wades through the grass until he is a few steps from Ludwig, his big eyes looking through the man. "That's disgusting," he says, pointing at Ludwig's forehead.

"What?"

"Don't you feel it? You're bleeding."

"I am?" Ludwig reaches up to wipe the blood away – instead of red, there are black smears on his sleeve. "I've never bled here before. Is this bad?"

"I don't know. I'm walking south. Do you want to follow?" The boy wanders off without waiting Ludwig's response, kicking his way through the field. Ludwig follows him. He doesn't have anything better to do.

This place is another great mystery of dying. Is it heaven? Is it purgatory? Is it (and Ludwig hopes not) hell? Wherever this place is, it functions as a waiting room for Ludwig's spirit until his body is in working order again. He's spent weeks here, waiting for a new heart or his brain matter to come together. It isn't so bad of a place – the weather is comfortable no matter what he's wearing, the scenery changes every few hours, and the sunsets are always gorgeous.

The boy is another layer to the mystery of the afterlife. Ludwig has no clue what purpose the boy serves, and the boy doesn't appear to, either. He'd like to think the boy is his guardian angel, but the boy couldn't care less about Ludwig's life. He seems to only tolerate Ludwig's existence in his realm. There are no other people or animals here. It is the boy, the mountains, and the sunset.

Ludwig asked the boy once if he liked it here. The boy shrugged.

"It's your birthday, isn't it?" the boy says as he picks up a rock and throws it as far as he can. It skips off the grass twice before disappearing.

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"I have no idea. I'd have to ask my brother."

The boy laughs his gentle, well-mannered laugh (the same kind of laugh as the old, elite countries like Austria and France). "God, you're worthless on your own. Well, happy birthday, Ludwig."

"Thank you."

The boy knows everything about Ludwig. Ludwig does not know anything about the boy, not even his name.

"Did you have any plans for today?" the boy says.

"I was going to see my brother in Moscow," Ludwig says. His chest seizes up at the thought of Gilbert waiting for him to arrive. It will destroy him when he finds out his baby brother died and he can't be there for him. Ludwig has never died without Gilbert there to take care of him.

"Do you miss your brother?" the boy asks. He turns to face Ludwig, the wind ruffling his hair. There is an unshakable familiarity about him, one Ludwig can't pin down. He sees it in the boy's eyes and hears it in his voice. They have met before, in some other time.

"Very much."

"Me too." The boy looks down at his bare feet. "I miss my father, too. They don't visit me anymore. It's only you."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I don't mind you, much. You're kind of funny. You remind me of my grandfather, all cold and demanding and so…frank. I'd much rather see my father, though." And with that, the boy continues his journey to nowhere, ripping up handfuls of grass and tossing them in the air.

The moon is high overhead when the boy decides to stop. He lays down in the grass, sprawling out over the earth. Ludwig sits down beside him and tilts his head up toward the stars. The stars here move in waves, lapping at an unseen shore. Everything moves here. It hurts his head to look at the sky, and at the same time, he can't look away. The boy is more interested in going through Ludwig's pockets than the unnatural wonder unfolding above him, counting Ludwig's loose change and drawing in the dirt with his keys.

"You're still bleeding," the boy says.

Ludwig wipes at the blood – it's thick and tacky, like lukewarm tar. It oozes through the gaps in his fingers, crawling down his arms into his sleeves. "Oh, God," he mutters as he tries to scrape the liquid off with the heel of his palm. "What is this?"

The boy scoffs. "How should I know?"

"I wasn't asking you."

"Yes, you were."

"No, I wasn't."

"There's no one else here to ask, so you'd have to be talking to me." He grins, showing off a missing tooth in the far-left corner of his mouth.

"Are all children as irritating as you are?"

The boy dumps Ludwig's wallet out on the grass, flipping through the identification cards and old meeting notes. He holds up the ticket to Moscow, peeking through the hole punched in the corner. "I'm rather mature for my age. My father said so."

"Parents lie to their kids. I'm sure you drove him insane."

"I'm sorry you never had a father, so you have to take things out on a child," the boy snaps. He crumples the ticket in his hand. "You're a sad man, Ludwig."

He raises his arm into the air and lets the wind carry the ticket off.

"No!" Ludwig jumps to his feet and breaks into a sprint, lunging for the ticket. The wind whips past him, pushing it just out of reach and pulling it higher into the air. His head pounds with each step, his sight shifting in and out of focus. His legs feel heavy and boneless. He trips over his own feet and manages to catch himself before his face meets the dirt. When he pulls himself up, the ticket is gone, lost to eternity.

"You won't be needing it anymore." The boy appears beside him, tucking the wallet into Ludwig's back pocket.

"No," Ludwig says. His chest is tight and his eyes itch, but he will not cry. He will not show this angel/demon/subconscious entity in the shape of a ten-year-old boy that he has emotions. "I need that ticket to get to Moscow. Get it back right now."

"You're not going to Moscow."

"Yes, I _am_. Find the goddamn ticket." Ludwig grabs a handful of the boy's shirt, lifting him up into the air. The boy wraps his small hands around Ludwig's wrist, writhing and kicking with all his strength. He's cursing in long dead languages, his face turning bright red as he shouts. Ludwig feels a pinch of guilt; he buries it beneath the longing to see Gilbert and his firm faith that this child isn't real. "Bring the ticket to me and I'll let you go," he says, softer than before.

The boy howls and scratches at Ludwig's arm. He's sobbing. His nose is bleeding – has Ludwig hurt him? A bloodstain appears on the front of his shirt out of thin air. There's a wild gleam in his eyes, a look Ludwig has seen many times before in his own eyes.

The boy remembers. His mind is somewhere else. He sees another time, another place.

Ludwig eases the boy to the ground before letting him go. There's a sick feeling in his stomach. The boy crumbles, folding over himself and wrapping his arms around his body. His shoulders heave with each sob. Ludwig kneels next to him, unsure of what to do or say.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't know what's happening. Are you alright?"

"You won't…you won't even _remember _Moscow," the boy hisses through his tears. "You won't even remember it! You're just the same as them. You're the same as all of them."

"I'm sorry?"

"_Get out." _The boy composes himself just enough to look up at Ludwig. His face is stained with tears and blood, his eyes red-rimmed and glazed over. "Get out of my home."

It is dead silent.

Ludwig is in a room. There are machines and wires and yet no noise. There is a window that lets in cold sunshine and beneath it a table full of flowers in every color. A delicate hand rearranging the blankets over Ludwig and he follows the hand to the arm to the shoulder to the face.

There is a man. He is half-asleep in a chair beside Ludwig's bed. He has glasses and the most impatient look, as though Ludwig's mere existence is inconveniencing him. His dark hair frames his face in curls and a single curl rises above the rest like a hook. Ludwig has never seen him yet finds any fear in him stilled by the man's incredible beauty. He looks as though he's stepped from an oil painting – his skin is a delicate ivory (punctuated by a small mole on his chin), his eyes so deep of a blue they're almost violet, and he somehow makes a simple black sweater look fit for a king.

The man says something, and no sounds escape his perfect, soft pink lips.

This is wrong.

Ludwig pries his hand free and immediately goes to touch where something should be on his forehead. Something was there a moment ago and now its gone, replaced by a line of stitches. He begins to pick at the stitches, searching for the thing that was there and isn't. He feels the memory of something wet on his fingers and he needs to find the source. The man grabs his wrist and eases it away, his thin eyebrows knitted together.

He speaks again without sound. Has Ludwig gone deaf?

"I don't know you," Ludwig says.

The man's face screws up.

"I don't know you and I can't hear you and something is very wrong."

The man lets go of Ludwig's wrist and takes a notebook from his lap, flipping it to a page half full of music. He pulls a pen from his pocket and writes in the margin, placing it on Ludwig's lap.

_Your hearing is probably damaged and you're still a little out of it. Why don't you try going back to sleep and we'll discuss it in the morning?_

"No," Ludwig says as he gives the man the book. "I want to know who you are and what's going on."

The man rolls his eyes, scribbles a quick sentence, and gives the book to Ludwig.

_You know me, Ludwig._

"I don't. I have never seen you. Are you a doctor? Do you know me?"

The man continues writing in the book, his pen shaking almost imperceptibly. _This is not funny. _

"I'm serious."

_Did Gilbert put you up to this?_

"I don't know who that is!" Ludwig slams the notebook closed and tosses it into the man's lap. "I don't know who anyone is or why I'm here. I know this is wrong and I can't –"

The man is gone. Ludwig looks at the empty chair beside him, trying to process everything and still understanding nothing. The man left his book on the chair and Ludwig can see a name stamped into the leather: Roderich Edelstein. He searches his memories for the name and comes up with no one. He would remember someone as powerful as Roderich Edelstein seems to be.

Roderich returns with a woman. The woman asks a few questions as she prepares something in the corner and Roderich answers while looking at Ludwig, fear swimming in his dark eyes. He takes Ludwig's hand so tentatively, as if Ludwig's skin was poisonous, while the nurse sticks a syringe into Ludwig's arm.

He keeps holding tight to him until Ludwig falls into a forced sleep.


End file.
